Brush for suction sweepers



May 27 1924. 1,495,182

H. E. HOOVER BRUSH FOR SUCTION SWEEPERS Original Filed Dec. 23, 1918 Patented May 27, 1924.

UNITED STATES P 'rs'roFl-lca HOWARD EARL HOOVER, OF CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, ALSSIGNOR, BY MESNE ASSIGNMENTS, TO THE HOOVER COMPANY, OF NORTH CANTON, OHIO, A COBI VO'RATION OF OHIO.

' Original application flied December fication, the subject matter of which has been divided out of co ending application, Serial No, 267,893, file December 23, 1918.

My invention relates to improvements insuction sweepers and has for. one -ob ect"to providea new and improved fo rm'ofp'owe'r driven brush for such machines. .Another object is to provide a brushwhich can be.

driven at'relatively high speeds by a high speed motor. without striking the carpet too often and too rapidly.

A further object is to provide a spiral brush so arranged that" when used in -con-' nection with a suction cleaner, its tendency to travel longitudinally and thus'to shift the body of the cleaner in either direction will be neutralized by a corresponding tendency to move in the opposite direction and so that the load on the bearings at the'two ends of the brush or cleaning member will substantially always be the same and approximately equal. v 0 It is understood that a carpet or floor covering which has to be cleaned by a suction sweeper must have three separate and distinct things done to it. It must first be beaten to produce the same results you would suction fan just as well as a heavier lower.

speed motor and do as good or better work, but, when a brush which is arranged so that no it beats the carpet twice or oftener during each revolution at every point along the -brush, is used, difliculty is had in thatthe beating strokes on the carpet are so frequent that the carpet does not have time to come get by beating a rug hanging on aline using BRUSH Fon- SUCTION swnnrnns.

2a, 1918, Serial no.'.2e7,se3'. Divided and this application filed m ,12, 1919. Serial in. 296,299.

back towardlthe center of the brush under the influence of the suction of the air between strokes and therefore the carpet is not properly beaten.

I, therefore, provide a brush having a single row of bristles so arranged that at no point along the brush will two bristles bunches strike the carpet in the same revolut-iona v i v My invention therefore relates to a particular kind of brush or cleaning device whose elements are arranged for embodying this feature, and is illustrated more or less diagrammatically in the accompanying drawings wherein Y The figure is a view of a brush with the bristles making more than one turn about the axis of the brush. A is a brush barrel or body mounted for rotation on a shaft A supported in the suction housing. This barrel or body carries a pulley A driven by a belt A which in turn is driven by a motor in any suitable manner. A A are dust or thread guards attached to the ends of the shaft A and adapted to overhang the ends of. the brush barrel or bodyto (guardthe'bearings against dirt and dust an also to position the'brush barrel or body inthe suction nozzle.

B B are-bristles arranged in a spiral about the axis. The pulle may be at the middle or at the end of the rush.

It will be evident that while I have shown in my drawings an operative device, still many. changes might be made both in size, shape, and arrangement of parts without departing materially from the spirit of my invention and I wish therefore, that my drawings be regarded as in a sense diagrammatic.

I have illustratedmy invention as applied to a brush having but one row of bristles.

As to this particular row of bristles, I have illustrated it as composed of two oppositely wound spirals, one for each half of the brush.

I have used the term brush, meaning thereby to indicate any device which performs the brush or beating function or both and I have used the expression bristles to oint'to those particular sweeping or brushing devices which form the contacting part of such brush structure and I wish to have these terms where implied in the specificadevice for beating and tion and claims understood in the broad sense indicated.

By the term brush therefore I really mean to convey the idea broadly of a cleaning device whose elements in this case are shown as brush bristles but might be any equivalent sweeping or doing both.

For the purposes of this application we have taken the expression a single row to mean that there is no overlapping of rows, that the brush is so constructed that a given portion of the floor or floor covering is not struck more than once during a singlet-evolution of the brush body. Such a row might or might not be continuous throughout the length of the brush.

The use and operationof my invention are as follows:

Since the bristles do not at an point overlap, but one brush bristle bllIlCl will strike the carpet during one revolution at any one point along the brush. Since there are two spirals or two turns of the spirals, there will always be two points along the brush where it is simultaneously in contact with the carpet. The particular arrangement of the two spirals oppositely wound as illustrated in the figure would result in a balance of the brush tending to suppress any possible tendency of the brush to, cause the machine to travel laterally.

The sweeper when properly adjusted with respect to the floor so that the suction in duced by the fan will draw the floor covering off the floor, will bring it up against the suction nozzle. "Air will be drawn through the carpet and across the carpet by the fan.

The brush rotates in unison with the fan and as it rotates each separate bristle strikes the carpet once each revolution. Since the bristles project down below the plane of the suction mouth and since there will always be a tendency for the air suctionto drag the carpet in, each bristle bunch must beat the carpet or floor covering away in order to pass and since the brush rotates at high speed it will strike a blow on the suspended carpet. This blow will knock the carpet suddenly away, the dirt will be jarred loose and shaken to the surface. It will then be picked up by the air current and carried ofi.

The particular arrangement of the oppositely wound spiraljrows of cleaning elements at the twoends of the brush will obviously result .in a substantially balanced brush'for approximately all positions and there will be substantially no tendency of the cleaning device to cause the machine to swing or move laterally or the brush to bear laterally against one side of the casing of the machine. The essential point is that the brush or cleaning device shall be balanced in the sense that its cleaning elements shall sixth day so contact the object to be cleaned due to their oppositely spiraled ends as to balance the cleaner or its action. The arrangement shown and suggested further results in giving a uniform load on each of the bearings at the ends of the cleaning devices, for in the particular case illustrated there will always be one bunch of bristles on each side of the center line of the brush in contact with the object to be cleaned and never more than one on each side.

It will be understood of course that in the foregoing description we are referring to the effect of the brush or cleaning device as distinguished from the effect of the pulley and belt. Obviously the driving pulley could be located at any point along the brush but We have shown it at one end and at this point its tendency would be to increase the load on the adjacent bearing but the action of the brush would tend to make the load on each bearing constant, thus substantially avoiding the injury due to a fluctuating load on either bearing.

1. A 'rotatably mounted cleaning device for suction cleaners comprising a body, a single row of cleaning elements arranged thereon in spirals thereabout, said spirals one group in any p ane perpendicular to the axis of the body, and that there .will always be approximately the same amount of cleaning elements in contact with the object to be cleaned on both sides of the center line of the cleaning device.

2. A rotatably mounted cleaning device for suction cleaners comprising a body, cleaning elements arranged thereon in spirals thereabout, said spirals being wound in op osite directions on opposite ends of the ceaning device and arranged so that there will always be approximately the same amount of cleaning elements in contact with the object to be cleaned on both sides of the center line of the cleaning device.- 7

3. In a suction cleaner a rotary. brush divided into two zones, in each ofsaid zones a single helical row of bristle tufts, the helix in each zone wound oppositely to that of the other, each of said helices extending about the brush body in an angle of less than 360 by an amount equal to the circumferential angular distance between adj acent bristle tufts.

In testimony whereof, I aflix my signature in the presence of two witnesses this of May 1919.

nowaan EARL noovna. \Vitnesses:

Mmm M. LINDENAU,

man L. INGRAHAM. 

